A residents' group opposed to a proposal for a "garden village" in Tunbridge Wells Borough Council's draft Local Plan says that responses to the borough's public consultation have completely justified their stance.

The Save Capel group was set up over a year ago when the council first published ideas to create a garden village of 2,800 homes at Tudeley within the parish, with a further housing expansion of 4,000 homes in a ring around Paddock Wood, which would also involve hundreds more homes being built in Capel.

Once adopted the Local Plan will direct development across the borough until 2036.

The council has now published the 8,000 responses it received to an initial "Regulation 18" consultation on the plan held at the end of last year.

The council said that because of the time it would take to review all the representations and make any necessary amendments to the plan, a second and final consultation on the Local Plan would not be possible until March next year.

But Chris Callander of Save Capel said: "We have carried out our own analysis of the public responses.

"This was not an easy piece of work - thanks to the way the council has collated and shared the results."

"However, we found that 30% (802) of all the respondents to the Place Shaping Policies section in the borough-wide plan commented on the proposals for Tudeley and East Capel.

Of those an overwhelming 97% of respondents objected to the plans with only 2% actually in favour. (One per cent did not express an opinion.)

"Curiously our own petition which contained with 3,750 signatories against the plans was recorded as a single response.

"This was not just Nimbysim. Nearly half of the respondents were from outside the parish of Capel.

"Environmental concerns were the most common reason to object, followed by a lack of transportation and infrastructure.

"It is clear that there is an overwhelming demand for the plans for Capel to be rejected and we are calling on Tunbridge Wells Borough Council to remove them from the next iteration of the Local Plan."

The chairman of Save Capel, Dave Lovell, added: “How can Tunbridge Wells Borough Council continue with plans which have the support of just 2% of the community? And most of that limited support came from developers with interests in the proposals!

“It was also telling that around half the objections came from outside of Capel.

"This is clearly not a case of a few disgruntled villagers. Almost 40% of responses came from Tonbridge, which is set to be hugely affected by the impact of thousands of new homes on its doorstep.

“Tunbridge Wells Borough Council has to recognise that what it referred to as the ‘easy option’ is no longer a viable one.

"It must back alternatives that a greater portion of the community can support, such as the many brownfield and other sites we know exist across the borough."

Mr Lovell said: “Save Capel has never said no to development. We support the right development in the right place. These findings clearly demonstrate that the plans for Capel are very much in the wrong place. The council held a consultation to hear what the public had to say. Now is the time to listen.”

Stephen Baughen, head of planning at Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, said: “The borough is carefully considering all comments received, which is the main reason for needing more time to progress the Local Plan to the next stage.

"There is no doubt that the responses raise a wide range of issues, which the council is currently considering.”

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